Friday, 29 December 2000

THE TOP TEN MOVIES OF 2000

Well, here we are once again. I was shocked... really shocked... to find out that my "Best of" starter list was a lot longer than my "Worst of" list, even in a year that has generally been considered a big disappointment. There were many good movies this year. What was missing, really, was The Great Movie... at least, until the last month of the year. Finding ten films that really deserve Top Ten recognition is harder than finding a long list of very strong, very recommendable, you-should-see-every-one films. For instance, Timecode is an important film with real genius shown by its very existence, yet I don’t know that it’s really a great film when separated from its one-of-a-kind form. (Its originality is infinitely greater than the "look at me, I’m special" mediocrity of Dancer in the Dark.) Likewise, I loved Waking the Dead, Keith Gordon’s dark-hearted love story, which USA Films apparently decided wasn’t worth sending out to critics this awards season... but is it a Top Ten movie? Probably not.

Perhaps the clearest marker that this was a rough year for great movies is the consensus on so many of the top films. Sure, there are self-aggrandizing art-snob lists all over the place (you could find at least two in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago), but the core of strong films is pretty clearly defined. What you will see are a lot of "If you love it, I hate it" arguments. You have the pro-Quills group and the anti-Quills group, the pro–Dancer in the Dark and the anti-Dancers, and those who embrace Finding Forrester and those who reject it. Ironically, those three films are all on a similar thread. Quills is theatrical; Forrester is fairly traditional Hollywood, albeit with Van Sant’s artistic twist; and, in the other camp, you have Dancer in the Dark, which is so aggressively "different."

Then there are movies like Born Romantic, The Dish, Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse, Fighter, In the Mood for Love, Innocence, Jazz, The King Is Alive, Our Lady of the Assassins, and The Princess & The Warrior, which I saw at film festivals, but which have not been released in the United States. Previously, I included these festival films in my year-end lists, but this year, I’ve decided to wait until next year. Hopefully, all ten of these films (and many other worthy festival films) will see release in 2001. At least a couple are due at Sundance in a few short weeks.

Finally, there are a handful of movies that might have made this list had I seen them. They are Aimée & Jaguar, Alice et Martin, and Malèna.

One more bit of business before getting down to business. As always, here’s another chance to take a look at last year’s list.

THE RUNNERS UP

THE ADVENTURES OF ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE One of the more underrated films of the year. It’s not an American classic, but it is one of the best adaptations of a cartoon to the big screen. This movie could have been an episode of the series, with that idea of the characters coming into the real world. Boris and Natasha occasionally lacked some of the cold subtlety of the series but, outside of that, it was all bad puns, quintuple entendre, and broad physical humor... just like I loved when I was a kid.

BEST IN SHOW
Chris Guest kept his Waiting for Guffman company in place and made some key additions, once again taking a poke at the awkward passions of the small-time obsessed. This one features the best-ever film performance by Fred Willard and a cast of kooks who tiptoe onto the edge of absurdity, but never fall over the edge.

BRING IT ON
The great summer surprise. This, not Charlie’s Angels, is the real "girl power" film of 2000. It is sexy and sassy, and it allows the mundane business of taking responsibility for yourself to play out realistically, even twisting the stereotypes we have known and come to love. It’s not a child "safe" movie, but kids aren’t child safe anymore these days, either. I think they appreciated the respect the filmmakers showed by trusting them with straight talk, however Hollywooded.

CAST AWAY
This film seems most likely to grow on me over the years and to move up my 2000 list into the Top Ten. It is not a traditional movie, but a poem that lingers within. That seed is likely to continue to grow within. Tom Hanks deserves an Oscar nomination, and a win would not be inappropriate. Robert Zemeckis has once again proven himself as the most underestimated major director in the business, creatively and commercially.

CHUNHYANG
A wonderful movie that has stuck with me and grown in esteem as time goes along. It’s a Korean fable of love, told in magnificent images, in combination with a wonderful gimmick of a live, singing storyteller. A great, great movie.

DOLPHINS
The best IMAX film I’ve seen. It manages to use the size of the IMAX screen very effectively, never feeling like a blown-up image that wasn’t meant to be seen in that format. Entertaining, informative, and challenging, Dolphins is a strong piece of filmmaking that just happens to be really, really big.

THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE
Not too many documentarians adjust their style of filmmaking to the subject. Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato are fearless in matching their film to the wild sight of Tammy Faye, from narration by RuPaul (who reads it straight, so to speak) to the sock puppets that move the story along. This doc tells the story of a part of America’s history that was profoundly influential in its time, every bit as big as the Lewinsky scandal or Florida’s hanging chads. Bailey and Barbato get answers to most of the tough questions and, when they don’t get answers, they make the evasions clear.

THE FILTH AND THE FURY
What a great ride. Julien Temple was a leader in the early days of music videos, before hitting a bit of a wall as a feature film director. But here, he brings all his skills to bear not only to tell the story of the Sex Pistols but also to take you into the world in which they lived. You can almost feel the safety pin cutting into your skin. You can almost smell the vomit. You can definitely smell the smoke. But most amazingly of all, you are sorry that you weren’t there to be a part of it.

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